


You Matter to Me

by msred



Series: Starting Over [6]
Category: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Anxiety, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Long-Distance Relationship, POV First Person, Romantic Gestures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22937866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: It was never going to be easy for me to enter into a relationship again after my husband died. The prospect was made even more daunting when the man on the other side of the relationship was one of the most famous, most sought after men in the world. It was hard for me to imagine how I could possibly fit into his world in any meaningful way, how I could measure up rather than bringing him down, how I could possibly matter, when he mattered so much. What I failed to consider was that, while he seemed to matter to everyone in the world, none of that actually mattered to him.
Relationships: Chris Evans (Actor) & Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor) & Reader, Chris Evans (Actor) & You, Chris Evans (Actor)/Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor)/Reader, Chris Evans (Actor)/You
Series: Starting Over [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1423663
Comments: 56
Kudos: 68





	1. Sad Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going back a little to the formatting of one of my earlier stories. The chapters/parts of this one are spread out over a long period of time, but they are incredibly closely linked together, thematically, and there is a sort of cause & effect element to them, so I wanted to post them as one story rather than separate pieces.

_1\. 5 weeks together (January, Year 2)_

Victoria gave a last swipe across my cheekbone with her brush, and when I opened my eyes and she stepped back, I could see Chris leaning in the doorway of my guest room-turned-dressing room. 

"Wow,” he grinned, lifting both eyebrows, and pushed himself off the door jamb and into the room. “You look amazing. Both of you."

Victoria and I had been in the room for over two hours getting ready for the premiere of Chris’s movie.  _ Our  _ movie, I supposed. I didn’t like to refer to it that way, since I was in it for all of five minutes, if that, but Chris and Jon both insisted that it was as much my story as anyone else’s, and even more mine than it was theirs. They were just the storytellers, the outside observers who got to convey the message to the rest of the world. Either way, I didn’t want to go overboard for the premiere, as if I were actually one of the ‘stars.’ I’d done my own hair, a low sleek ponytail that would show off the unique asymmetrical neckline of my dress and the gorgeous teardrop earrings I’d had for a couple years but only worn once. Then I’d helped Victoria with her hair - long, cascading curls down her back - while she did her own make up, and finally, she’d turned her attention to me. It was rare that I had a reason to put anything on my face beyond moisturizer, under-eye concealer, and a little mascara, and on the even rarer occasion that I needed anything more than a simple look for a girls’ night (or, I supposed, now that I was officially  _ with  _ Chris, date night) the first thing I did was call Victoria. The last time had been four months earlier, when she’d done my make-up for my one scene in the movie. She seemed to be enjoying herself much more the next time around, though, because she didn’t have to, in her words  _ use all this good stuff just to make you look like you’re laying around your house _ . 

Seeing as how it had been all of 10 days that Chris and I had been together, and I had my own ticket to the premiere regardless, we both agreed that we didn’t actually need to be one another’s dates, officially. I had enough anxiety to overcome just from being in a relationship at all, let alone with someone of his status and with his level of fame; we didn’t need to make it public when it was still so new. Besides, we’d both already invited other people to go with us anyway, so it would have been kind of a shitty move to back out on that at the last minute just because we’d -  _ I’d  _ \- wised up and realized the whole ‘just friends’ thing was completely ridiculous. Chris had invited a friend of his, a guy he’d grown up with and who had joined the military and was stationed in Maryland at the time, only about three hours away from where I, and the premiere, was. It had seemed obvious to me that my ‘date’ should be Victoria. She was my unofficially adopted daughter and had been my support system from the moment I’d gotten the news about my husband, even moving in with me for a while when her own mom kicked her out, and she’d even had her own involvement with the movie by doing my makeup. I’m sure Jon would have gotten her a ticket anyway if Chris or I had asked, because of that involvement, but I wanted her to go with me. She’d been by my side for so much, I wanted her officially by my side for that as well. 

Victoria spun on her heel at Chris’s voice, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she beamed back at him. "Thanks, Chris!” It made me happy to see her joy. One of the things she and I had bonded over early was our shared love of Captain America, which we discovered when I used the hero’s story to teach archetypes in her English class. That early bond grew into lunchtime conversations about literary elements in Marvel movies, which then led to more authentic conversations about her home life, and eventually became the mother-daughter relationship that we shared by the time I met Chris. She’d done so, so much for me that I was glad to be able to bring that kind of happiness into her life, even if my ‘contribution’ was only providing a through-line to her celebrity crush-slash-hero.

Chris hooked an arm over Victoria’s shoulder and pulled her in for a quick side hug, then he came to stand in front of me while Victoria slipped behind me to start cleaning up her makeup and tools from the top of the vanity. "That color looks incredible on you,” he told me, his left hand falling to my right hip and his right fingering the single wide strap over my left shoulder. “Is this the dress from the picture on your desk?"

"Yeah.” I scrunched my nose and bit my bottom lip. “Is that bad?” The picture he was talking about was from a promotion banquet just a few months before my husband had gotten deployed. It had been the first of what we expected to be many formal events, thanks to said promotion, which had meant the navy, one-shoulder, mermaid-skirt gown was also the first formal dress I’d owned since college, if you didn’t count various bridesmaid dresses, which I certainly didn’t. I could’ve gone out and bought a new dress for the premiere; several people had strongly argued that I should, in fact. It’s not like I’d ever attended a movie premiere before, so the opinion was that I should go all out. But I also wasn’t yet ready to assume that I would ever attend a movie premiere, or anything more formal than a high school prom (as a chaperone, at that), again, and something in me just didn’t want to buy a new dress. I was content, even happy, to wear that same one again.

"No!” He was adamant, his eyes wide and his head shaking. “Not at all. I think it's meaningful.” He brought his hand up from my shoulder to adjust my bangs, a strand falling down toward my eyes from where I’d swept them to one side. That hand came down to mirror the other on my hip once he’d finished with my hair. I didn’t even think about it before bringing my own hands up to his chest and rubbing the lapels of his jacket between my thumbs and forefingers. “And besides, it suits you. It's gorgeous on you.” He leaned in and my heart jumped, butterflies springing to life in my stomach when his nose brushed slowly along the side of mine. I think I may have actually gasped, though, when he stopped abruptly and pulled back before I got to feel his lips on mine. “Wait, is this okay? Am I allowed?"

"Of course, silly.” I giggled and tried to pull him in by his jacket. “C'mere."

He resisted, standing his ground and even pushing back against my hips just a little bit. "I wasn't asking you. I was asking the boss." He jerked his chin toward Victoria. 

When I turned to look over my shoulder at her, Victoria was still packing her things away, tucking the last couple brushes into her large make up bag. She zipped the bag and waved him off almost flippantly. "Yeah, go ahead. I won't do her lips until like right before we get out of the car. She can't keep a product on her lips for more than 10 minutes. She talks it all off."

"Hey!" I reached behind me to swat at her, making contact with her forearm, and when she looked up at me I widened my eyes and stuck my tongue out at her. 

Chris laughed, taking a small step back and dropping his hands from my hips to rest them on his own. "And I was worried I wasn't mature enough for you,” he smirked. 

"Okay mister,” I folded my arms over my chest and popped one hip slightly to the side, tilting my head to match and pursing my lips, “well, now I rescind  _ my  _ permission."

"Hmm,” he hummed, letting his tongue peek out between his lips just a little as he narrowed his eyes and drummed his fingers on his hips to appear deep in thought, “do you, though?"

We both knew the answer to that. "What do you think?"

His faux pensive expression became a smirk, one eyebrow lifted and the corner of his mouth quirking up to match. "I think we both know which of us is more mature and I just can't help making bad jokes. I also think I really want to kiss you, but only if you want me to."

It took everything in me not to moan a little. It was like he’d managed to sum up so many of the things that made me crazy about him into a single statement, and every cell in my body wanted him to kiss me. "Oh my God, come here.” I watched him take the two steps it took to close the distance between us, a smile playing at both his mouth and his eyes. “And by the way,” I told him when he slid his hands onto the small of my back and I draped my arms over his shoulders, “from this point forward, you have my permission to always assume I want you to kiss me unless I say otherwise, not the other way around.” He flinched a little, pulling his head back and looking slightly uncomfortable. Even though he hadn’t actually been asking my permission the first time around, I knew that was something that mattered to him. Every one of the few kisses we’d shared so far had been under my control. Even the ones that he had invited, through a hand on my back or weaving into my hair, or a tilt of his head toward me as we sat together on the hotel room couch in D.C., had required action on my part to seal the deal. He would wait, a small, patient smile on his face, for me to lean in, or push myself up onto my toes, or whatever it took to close the remaining distance between us, only tightening his hold on me once I’d pressed my lips to his. 

“See, I love that that's difficult for you, I really do, but right now I'm telling you I can't imagine a scenario where I wouldn't want you to kiss me.” He looked like he was going to say something, so I pulled one arm quickly from his shoulder and held up a finger to stop him. “And I'll let you know if that's ever not true. If we’re  _ together,  _ and we are together, right?” I did my best to keep my voice level and not sound insecure.

“As long as that’s what you want.” I could feel his thumbs sliding up and down over my back through the fabric of my dress. It had only been just over a week, really, and not even that if you considered that we’d been together for only a couple days, then apart for several more, then together again just since that morning, but already I loved how tactile he was, how he didn’t hesitate to show his affection through touch. “It’s definitely what I want.”

I took half a step closer to him so that we were closer even than toe-to-toe, my still-bare feet actually fitted between his. “Then we’re together,” I told him quietly, sliding one hand up gently into his hair at the nape of his neck. “And if we’re together, and you ask permission every single time you want to kiss me, either you’re going to get really annoying really fast,” I lifted my eyebrows quickly then went on, “or we’re not kissing nearly enough.” He chuckled a little. “So, generally speaking, you have my consent to kiss me."

"I'll work on remembering that."

It was like he picked right back up where he’d left off before, using his hands on my back to pull me not only in, but also up so that I stood on my toes, then sliding his nose along mine before pressing his lips to mine, almost as if he were accepting my invitation for him to take more control. It was slow and gentle, his lips almost sipping at mine and his strong arms wrapping around me to hold me up when I melted against him. 

“Okay,” Victoria’s voice broke through the haze that had started to cloud my mind and I kept my eyes closed when Chris pulled back, breaking the kiss but then pressing his forehead to mine and still holding me against him, “can I rescind  _ my  _ permission? I don’t need to see this.”

I opened my eyes and saw Chris biting his lips, most likely trying not to laugh. “Funny, I thought you moved out months ago.” I dropped my hands from around Chris’s neck and planted them on my hips as I turned to face the younger woman. “You don’t live here anymore, you can go any time.”

“Oh, nice,” she scoffed, “love you too Mom.”

“Oookay, you know what?” Chris dropped his hands heavily on my shoulders and rocked me back and forth a little. “We should probably  _ all  _ go. I told Favreau to let the execs know the car could pick up all four of us at Brian’s hotel, so we should be heading that way.” He stepped forward so that I could feel his chest at my back and when I looked up over my shoulder at him his head was tilted down toward me. “You still good with that? Riding in together?” We’d decided to do it that way weeks earlier, a good month or more before we’d started dating. Since we’d just become more than friends, we were trying to keep some privacy around our relationship, but that certainly didn’t mean we needed to go so far as to actively avoid each other. There were a million reasons why it made sense for us to be seen together at the premiere, starting with the fact that he was playing my husband and ending with us being friends, the way he was with nearly everyone he’d ever worked with.

“Yeah, of course.” I lifted my hands to rest them on top of his and pushed up onto my toes again to turn and press my lips to his cheek.

“Alright then,” he kneaded my shoulders in his hands a couple times, “let’s roll out.”

…

It was late when we got back to my house, and I was exhausted. On the physical end, it had been a long, long day. I’d been up early to pick up Chris at the airport, I’d spent a couple hours with Victoria getting ready, and the premiere itself had been several more hours, much of it spent on my feet. Mentally, being thrown into a crowd that large, made up almost exclusively of people I didn’t know or knew only in passing, and being expected to be ‘on’ the entire time was so, so draining. And emotionally, well, the emotional exhaustion was the worst of all. I knew the story of the movie, of course. It was, more or less, my story. But it wasn’t possible to actually be prepared to see it on the screen. I’m sure there were some aspects that were dramatized a bit for the screen, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch Chris, who I already cared so much about, portray my husband, who I’d been with - been in love with - for over half my life, during the last few months of his life. And Chris had been right there, as much as possible, considering how many people were clamoring for his attention, the entire time. He’d held my hand through the entire film, and when it got to our scene, worked in as a flashback toward the end, he moved my hand into his other one, the one that had been resting on his opposite knee, fingers opening and closing throughout the film as he worked through his own anxiety, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders to pull me close. For about half a second I’d worried about people seeing, but he didn’t seem to care about that, and besides, I couldn’t help but allow myself to sink into the comfort he provided. By that point, I just didn’t have it in me to care about discretion, especially if it meant not letting myself be held by him, not letting myself be distracted, just for a second, from all the feelings, all the anxiety, that were overwhelming me.

The thing was, though, as much as I knew he wanted it to help, and as much as it did, at times, Chris’s proximity, his concern, his overall thoughtfulness and attentiveness to me, actually ended up adding to my emotional stress and exhaustion. It was the first time I’d really seen him in action - not acting, of course, because I’d seen that in my house when we filmed our scene, but the other aspect, the more social aspect, of his job - and it was like a huge, unwelcome reality check, showing me just how much I didn’t make sense in his world. That was just one more emotional gut-punch on top of an already difficult day.

As soon as we were in the front door, I reached around him to lock it where he’d held it open then closed it behind me. My eyes stayed downcast, watching one thumbnail pick at the other, when I told him, “I’m going to change.”

“Hey,” his voice was low and steady and he reached for me, his fingertips brushing the inside of my wrist. He waited for me to look up at him before he went on. “Can I have a kiss first?” I nodded and turned to him, just barely resting my hands on his hips while he leaned down to softly close his lips over my own, his hands gently cupping the backs of my arms. “Thank you.” He kissed me again, on the cheek, then tightened his hands for just a second before letting me go so I could back away.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered, my eyes a little clouded over. I cleared my throat. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I need to take out my contacts and wash my face and brush my hair, too.” I turned away quickly to head down the hall to my bedroom.

“Okay.” His voice stopped me, but I didn’t turn around. I was only barely holding it together and I knew he would see it on my face. “I’ll change too, then I’ll come back out here and we can watch a movie? Maybe some basketball?”

I nodded. “Okay.” I wouldn’t be able to stay awake through a movie or a game, and I think he knew that. He just didn’t want me to go hole myself up in my bedroom and stay there, I guessed.

“Hey,” I stayed put, and I heard his footsteps on my hardwood floor before his hands landed high on my arms, thumbs brushing over my shoulders, “you were amazing tonight.” He spoke just next to my ear and when he was finished he pressed a kiss to my hair.

I turned just enough to kiss his cheek, my eyes closed. “I’ll be back,” I nearly choked out, then hurried down the hall before he could call me back again. 

When I came back into the living room, clean-faced, hair down, and much more comfortable in my flannel pajama pants and oversized UK t-shirt, Chris was in the recliner, also in much more comfortable clothes than he’d been wearing before, flipping the remote control in one hand.

“Sit with me?” He very easily could have sat on the much more comfortable, much larger, couch, so I guessed that his choice to sit in the chair was strategic.

“Sure.” 

He moved his legs to one side of the footrest when I approached, but he didn’t really make any more room on the actual seat. He put the remote down on the end table and rested his arms on the armrests until I was settled, more or less on his lap. He wrapped his arms loosely around my waist and shifted a little so we shared the seat and he could look over at me without craning his neck awkwardly. “What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing.’”

I wasn’t even surprised when he asked. I knew he could tell I was off, and I’d figured out early on in our friendship that while he wasn’t one to push, he also didn’t beat around the bush. “I just,” I trailed off, sighing, then finally added, “the movie made me sad.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Don’t do that. Not,” he huffed, “I mean,” he paused again. “Shit.” He shook his head then took a deep breath. “Okay, what I mean is, I’m not saying not to be sad about that. You know that. Obviously you feel however you need to feel and I don’t want you to think you can’t talk to me about it.” He lifted a hand to push my hair behind my ear and over my shoulder when I ducked my head and it fell in front of my face. “I’m not going to be upset over you being sad about losing your husband. But don’t lie to me.”

I sighed and stuttered a little, “I -”

He lowered his chin to look up at me from under his brow. “Don’t make it worse.” His hand curled around my neck and he traced the underside of my jaw with his thumb. “You probably are sad about that, and I get it, and I want to support you in whatever way I can, whatever way you want me to. But that’s not what this is. At least, it’s not  _ all  _ this is. You had sad eyes way before we even sat down for the screening. And when you and Victoria came out of the bathroom, after forever, I know you’d been crying. She’s good, but she’s not that good. So talk to me. Please?”

I knew exactly what he was talking about, because he was right. 

Rather than a traditional red carpet premiere, the studio had opted to premiere the movie on base, the same base that my husband and the other men and women in his unit who had been killed or injured were stationed out of. The base commander had authorized to have a hangar cleared out - a couple of them were always nearly empty anyway, used for storage of back-up parts and tools rather than active aircraft, and frequently played host to large meetings and briefings - and the studio had brought in a high quality screen and HD projector and rented nice chairs from a local event rental company. The commander had also closed the flightline so that a blue carpet could be rolled out from the entrance of the hangar to the runway, which all the ‘VIPs’ - actors and other movie personnel, of course, but also the families of anyone killed on the mission, as well as base and Air Force higher-ups (what the military referred to as DVs - ‘Distinguished Visitors’) - drove in on. All the other troops from that deployment, and their families, were invited as well, but they were given a designated parking area off the flightline and instead of walking the blue carpet, they were in the crowd to meet those who did walk it. Anyone currently stationed at the base had also been given an opportunity to enter a lottery for tickets, but many of them viewed the film at a community center on base that had been turned into an overflow location for the screening, since the VIPs and formerly deployed troops mostly filled the hangar.

The whole day was going to be difficult for me even under the best circumstances. I was there to watch the premiere of a movie about my husband’s death; my emotional state was never going to be ideal. But I’d kept it together for the first hour or so that we were there. Walking down the carpet had been surreal, because of all the attention, but it hadn’t been terrible. For the most part, Victoria and I had hung back, a few steps behind Chris and sometimes Brian, who alternated between sticking close to Chris’s side and hanging back with Victoria and me, and stuck to the opposite side of the carpet from the crowd and the cameras. Occasionally, Chris would call me forward for a picture or two, sometimes just with him, sometimes all four of us. There was never time to introduce me when he did that, which was fine; it was all so quick and overwhelming that I wouldn’t have expected him to do so anyway, but it seemed that he was picking and choosing when to have me at his side, so I assumed that there was a logic behind it, that he was familiar with many of the journalists and was more comfortable having me pose for some of them than for others. Once we got into the hangar everything relaxed a little. Chris was handed a beer and a white wine was placed in my hand before I even realized what was happening.  _ My manager’s assistant _ , he’d leaned over to whisper while Brian was carrying the weight of our group conversation with a colonel.  _ They asked me a few days ago what you’d want to drink and I said sauvignon blanc. I hope that’s okay. I didn’t know what color your dress was, so I figured white wine was the safest bet, and I remembered how you don’t like chardonnay. _ Apparently that particular assistant’s job for the day was just to keep an eye on Chris, Brian, Victoria, and me and bring us anything she thought we might want or need. It was strange, honestly, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t appreciate it.

Soon though, the reporters began to make their way into the hangar. I’d been much more comfortable talking to Air Force personnel, even high-ranking ones, and the other actors, mostly newcomers, Chris had introduced me to than I was with the prospect of talking to reporters. The first one, a man wearing a badge from a publication whose name I didn’t actually recognize, approached Chris with an expression of laser focus. I tried to back away, spotting Victoria, who’d been more than happy to spread her wings and make her own way around the room, several yards away talking to the hair stylist who had been at my house the day we shot our scene. Chris wasn’t having it though. He flattened his palm between my shoulder blades and introduced me to the reporter, first as  _ the widow of the real-life hero I get to bring to the screen _ . The man waved me off with a cursory,  _ Nice to meet you _ , then turned his attention back to Chris, picking back up as if Chris hadn’t introduced me at all. Chris answered his question, then tried to bring me into the conversation again, this time referring to me as  _ my co-star for probably the most poignant scene in the film _ . Again, I was all but ignored, earning a quick head nod before the attention was once again turned back to the man at my side. I felt his fingers tense on my back and I flinched, not because of my discomfort, but because of his. Chris tried one more time, calling me  _ an extremely valuable consultant and resource; there would be no movie without her.  _ That one did get an  _ Oh, that’s nice _ , from the reporter, but he followed it immediately with  _ but Mr. Evans, it’s you I’m really interested in here. You’re the movie star, Captain America, the real draw behind this movie.  _ I saw Chris’s jaw clench and heard the deep breath he pulled in through his nose, and I excused myself, lifting a hand to Chris’s shoulder to hopefully subtly rub out just a tiny bit of the tension there with my thumb and remind him to relax, and lying to the reporter that it had been nice to meet him, but that I needed to head to the ladies’ room. I managed to make eye contact with Brian, a few feet away, and he took my place at Chris’s side when I stepped away. It may have seemed bratty or selfish, just walking away like that, but that wasn’t my intention. It was impossible for me not to feel like he would be so much more at ease if I wasn’t right next to him, where he felt like he had to look out for me instead of just doing what he knew so well how to do.

I didn’t even make it to the restroom before the back of my nose stung and the tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I beelined to one of the sinks and leaned over it, bracing myself on the porcelain with my hands. Before the door had a chance to close, Victoria was slipping her way in. She didn’t ask me what was wrong, just wrapped her arms around my shoulders and held me while I cried. And when I was finally finished, many minutes later, she started pulling things - wipes, brushes, a small eye palette, mascara - out of her seemingly too-small bag.  _ I thought I should be prepared, just in case _ she told me when I looked at her in confusion. When we finally emerged, with me touched up and mostly put back together, on the outside anyway, we found nearly everyone, save for a few stragglers, seated. Chris was one of those stragglers. I could practically see the relief on his face when he saw us come out of the restroom, and Victoria just squeezed my hand and went to sit with Brian in the seats that had been reserved for us.

I pulled myself out of the painful memory to consider how to best respond to his request to talk to him. I shifted a little in the chair we shared, trying to take some of my weight off him and bringing my own hand up to cover his where it still rested on the side of my neck. “I think I’m in over my head - out of my league,” I told him with the smallest hint of a sad smile.

“What do you mean?” His brows furrowed. 

I sighed. There was no good way to say what I felt. “It was one thing being your friend. That made sense, sort of. Everybody loves you and you’re just  _ good.  _ Friendship just fits you, no matter who’s on the other side of it, really. But,” I drew in a shaky breath and shook my head, “I have no business being your girlfriend.”

He made a face like I’d just slapped him. “Did I … do something?” He was the one who got fidgety then, even going so far as to sit up and lower the footrest on the recliner. He held my hips, to keep me from getting out of the chair, I assumed, and turned so he was just perched on the edge of the chair, looking back at me. “I don’t, I don’t know all the military stuff, all the etiquette, all that, I know that.” His hands started to fly, big gestures punctuating every word. “For the most part, tonight, this was more your scene than mine. But I was polite, I was engaged, I  _ thought  _ I was gracious with everyone who approached me. If I messed something up, I’m really sorry.” The look on his face and in his eyes, so sincere and really and truly apologetic, even scared, absolutely broke my heart. “And if you can tell me how to fix it, I will.”

“God, Chris, no.” My own hands flew up then, to rest gently on his cheeks. “That’s not what I mean  _ at all.  _ You were amazing.” I tried to emphasize the word. “You’re  _ always _ amazing. I meant  _ me _ . I’m not,” I stopped, trying to think of a way to say it that would make sense outside my own head. I finally settled on, “I don’t  _ matter _ , the way you do. I, I bring you down”

He closed his eyes and his head sagged. “This is about the reporter.”

“No.” I shook my head then shrugged, “Well, yes, but it’s more than just that. It’s, it’s symbolic, I guess, if I take a step back and look at it like an English teacher. He represents all the reporters, and the actors and directors who aren’t as kind as you and Jon, and just the whole industry.”

“Fuck the industry.”

“Chris.” I huffed and rolled my eyes. “That’s your world.” And that’s the thing I needed him to understand. It wasn’t about me, really. I didn’t mind not being the center of attention, staying in the background. I almost always preferred it, actually. For as much as I could hold my own in front of a classroom full of teenagers or even at a large function not dissimilar to the premiere, I very much preferred being just another member of the group, or, better yet, pulling the strings behind the scenes to support whoever it was that  _ was  _ the center of attention. The thing that was bothering me, that had been bothering me since the encounter with the reporter, wasn’t that he brushed me off, it was the way Chris had responded. He’d been offended on my behalf, protective, and I appreciated it. In fact, I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t been a little warmed by it at first. But that’s not what I wanted for him. I didn’t want a relationship with me to mean that he went to work functions constantly on edge. Those things could be hard enough on him as it was, with his own struggles with anxiety, and I refused to be the reason they became even more difficult. On top of that, I didn’t want him to be with someone who wasn’t up to his level, even if that was me. And finally, a bit more selfishly, I didn’t want to be with him for a month, or a few months, or even longer, and get attached -  _ more  _ attached, more crazy about him - only for him to decide sometime down the road that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

“No.” The word was adamant, forceful. “It’s my job, not my world. My world is my family, Dodger, my friends. It’s Boston and good art and books and music. It’s using my voice to speak up for things I believe in. And it’s you, for a while now.” I think he could sense that I wanted to protest, because he slid off the chair to kneel in front of it, wrapping his hands around my hips and pulling me forward until the chair rocked and my feet landed on the floor, both to the left of his knees. “You’ve been my girlfriend for a week, but you’ve been a part of my world for a lot longer than that.”

“You don’t -”

“I love my job. I love acting. I love reading scripts and getting to interpret them and making characters my own and infusing parts of myself into them and vice versa.” With each sentence his hands tightened on my hips. “I love a lot of the people I get to work with and the bonds I create with them. But it’s still a job. It’s a small,  _ tiny  _ part of my whole world. And people like that asshole?” He closed his eyes and wrinkled his nose, curling his mouth up a little almost in a sneer, “They’re nothing. But you - you think you don’t matter the way I do?” He dragged me forward even more until I was just at the edge of the seat. “You matter  _ to me _ . And that has to count for something, right? More than what assholes like that think?”

My hands came to his head so I could steady myself and once the chair stopped moving I ran my fingers through his hair, over his ears and down to his neck. “That’s really sweet.  _ You’re  _ really sweet.” I didn’t want to let him go, so I continued to let my fingers dance over his neck. He let his own hands drift, sliding forward until they curled over the tops of my thighs, his arms hanging down beside my legs and boxing me in. “And you have no idea how amazing it feels to have you say that to me. But don’t you think you’re being idealistic? We can’t just ignore all the stuff that comes along with your job.”

“We can’t,” he shook his head. “But we can deal with it.”

I smiled softly and traced the shell of his ear on one side. “I don’t think it’s that simple.” Though I really, really wanted it to be.

“Why not?” I only scoffed at his question, and he turned his head to kiss my wrist. “Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, of course. But -,”

He shook his head. “I’m telling you that I don’t care what  _ the industry  _ thinks about you or about us. And I know that’s easy to say and that it’s hurtful to you when someone is a dismissive dick like that guy was,” he pressed his arms in toward one another, squeezing my legs between them, “and I’m not trying to dismiss that. But I’m also telling you that you are so, so much more important to me than any of that shit. I’m telling you that  _ you _ matter to _ me _ . You matter so much.” I opened my mouth to argue again, but his right hand flew up to my jaw, his thumb resting over my lips. “Ah.” He shushed me. “And, if that’s not enough for you, then maybe you need to ask yourself how much I matter to you.” He dropped down onto his heels and let his hands fall away from me, resting atop his own knees. 

My hands had fallen from his neck when he sat back, and they went to his shoulders as I slid out of the chair and onto my knees in front of him, a little bit sideways because there wasn’t room for me between him and the chair. “Oh my god, Chris,” my voice cracked, exhaustion and anxiety and pure heartbreak threatening to consume me, “of course you matter. You,” I tightened my hands, the fabric of his shirt bunching in my fists; I couldn’t even think of anything else to say so I repeated myself, “of course you do.” I felt so incredibly melodramatic, but I couldn’t stop myself. Later I’d blame it on the long day and that same exhaustion and anxiety. And more than a little bit on those words,  _ You matter to me _ . We were nowhere near  _ I love you _ , not yet anyway, but somehow those other words, the ones he had said, seemed almost to mean more. 

He smiled, small and soft and lovely, and brought his hands up to cover mine, pulling them free from his shirt to bring them to his lips and kiss the knuckles on each hand. “I know.” He stood and tugged me up with him, sitting back in the chair and using his hands on my hips to guide me squarely down onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You try really hard to keep things close to the vest, to keep your feelings, especially your fears and struggles, deep inside and put on a happy face for the world. But don’t forget, sweet girl, I can be pretty damn attentive when I set my sights on something, and I’ve had my sights on this, on  _ us _ , for a long time now. You’ve put up a pretty high wall, but it’s got cracks, and I can see through ‘em pretty well. In fact, I hope I’m not giving myself too much credit here, but I think I might even be responsible for a few of them.” He rubbed his thumbs over my ribs through my shirt, staying quiet until I turned my head to look at him, then he winked, and I had to bite back a smile. He was definitely responsible, and for more than a few. He’d done more in the past six months to open me up, to make me feel safe and supported and cared for, than nearly anyone else in my life. “Anyway, the point is, you can be a pretty closed book when you want to be, but all that really means is it was that much easier for me to see when you started to open up. I know you wouldn’t have taken that leap you made in D.C. if you hadn’t known it was what you wanted, if you weren’t ready to go all in.” He tilted his head down to press his lips to my shoulder. “But I wanted you to see it from my perspective a little bit.”

“That wasn’t nice,” I pouted, my voice, and even my heart, almost inexplicably lighter. A few days later, after he was gone, I would reflect on the whole experience with my therapist and she would help me understand that all I’d needed was to voice my concerns, my fears and vulnerabilities, aloud - something, as Chris had gently pointed out, I’d never been good at - and have him not even necessarily provide me with affirmation, because, according to her, I couldn’t get that confidence from anyone outside myself, but show that he heard me, that he understood where I was coming from. The fact that he’d so willingly, so  _ eagerly _ , even, done that had already gone a long way toward quieting my noisy brain.

“I know.” He was almost cocky when he said it. “But did I get my point across?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He tightened his arms around my waist just briefly. “Just remember, the only person who’s gonna get me to go anywhere is you. You’re the one who matters.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” I let my head fall sideways over onto his.

“You do that. So are we okay?” I nodded. “Good. Now can I have another kiss?”

I moved to turn toward him and he pulled back a little, grinning cheekily, to give me space. “I told you earlier you don’t have to ask every time.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He just kept grinning at me until I rolled my eyes and bent up the arm closest to him to rest my hand on his cheek. He leaned in, but only halfway, making me meet him in the middle. When I did, he lifted his hand to the back of my head, holding me to him as he pushed a little against me. It wasn’t rough, or too hard, but it certainly wasn’t light and soft either. It was one I was meant to really feel, and remember.


	2. Right Here Beside You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, this chapter references and was inspired by songs from the musical "Waitress." (The whole story was inspired by it, but the first part didn't make the direct references that this one does.) If you aren't familiar with the show and its music, or if you just want to get in the narrator's head a little more, I suggest listening to the following songs before, or even while, reading. (Also, it's just a really, really good soundtrack, especially if you're a showtunes nerd like me, but even if you're not.):  
> Track 12. I Didn't Plan It (https://youtu.be/uLsdNGR_n3w)  
> Track 13. Bad Idea (Reprise) (https://youtu.be/oqBXO3edYNI)  
> Track 14. You Matter to Me (https://youtu.be/AREDtpRZTSA)
> 
> Secondly, this chapter is smut. Seriously. In fact, it kind of seems, on the surface, as if that's all it is and as if it doesn't really have any plot development implications at all. That's not entirely the case - it does have a purpose (beyond just plain ole smuttiness) - but if you are not comfortable reading smut about a real person (and yes, it's written in first person, like all the stories in this series), I totally understand and respect that. I will be putting a note at the beginning of the next chapter that briefly explains how this one fits with that one and which will allow you to skip the smut and still get the plot points that are in this story. 
> 
> If you're still with me, enjoy!

_ 10 months later (November, Year 2) _

“ _ I didn’t plan it, taking back what’s been taken for granted, _ ” I belted the words along with Keala Settle’s voice as it poured from the waterproof bluetooth speaker I kept in the shower, taking my time to run the suds-covered washcloth over my chest and stomach a few more times than necessary. 

I was in no hurry to get out of the shower. I’d gotten up early to head to the gym to work off at least a portion of the abundance of food I’d eaten the day before at Chelsea and AJ’s and had left a sleeping Chris in bed curled up next to Millie, who’d been all too happy to jump up to take my place as soon as I dragged myself out of bed. When I got home, after an hour of kicking imaginary ass in hopes of mitigating some of the Thanksgiving damage, Chris was out walking Millie (or, as the note he left me stated,  _ Getting in some quality 1-on-1 time with my 2nd best girl).  _ I’d headed straight for the shower, because as much as I enjoyed showering with him, it had been a pretty intense workout and I was happy to have the chance to wash off the funk before he got back home. Once I was in there, though, the hot water pouring over my already tight muscles and the smell of eucalyptus and mint working its way into the steam that filled the small room, I had no desire to leave.

“ _ And a good mistake need making, maybe you need the same thing _ ,” I threw my head back, holding the cloth under the spray of water to let the body wash rinse away, “ _ something to feeeeeeeeeel! _ ” I cringed at myself for a second, failing miserably to hit the appropriate, very high, note, then laughed it off and went on, louder than before. Because why not? It’s not like there was anyone else around to hear me. I finished the verse then hummed the first few lines of the next one as I swung my hips in time to the music, wringing out the washcloth and hanging it from the hook on the bottom of the wire shower caddy. I pulled in a deep breath, preparing to go all out for my favorite line and finish the song with a bang. “ _ And I’m fiiinally feeling alive _ ,” I threw my arms open wide. “ _ It’s not right, but it’s mine, _ ” my eyes squeezed closed and my arms came in to wrap around my waist, “ _ and it’s finally something to feel. _ ”

I giggled to myself as the song ended. I never sang in public. Ever. I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life, which made my position as the director of the school’s musicals quite interesting. (I always just managed to appoint a student music director, telling them that I wanted to have students in positions of leadership. It wasn’t untrue, but it was  _ also  _ because I was less than zero help with the singing.) But for as much as I knew I was a downright terrible singer, I loved it. I’d put on countless concerts in my shower and my car, sharing my ‘talent’ with a very select few people: a couple friends I’d grown up with, a few from college, and Spencer. And any time I was alone, I was almost always singing along to something. Dancing, too, if my task allowed it - cooking, cleaning, and showering, of course. There had been a time when the music I chose to keep me company was sad, or often angry, even dark. For the past year or so though, maybe a bit longer, it had been much more fun - 80s rock, the pop stuff my kids listened to, or often, as on that morning, Broadway showtunes. I stepped back under the water to rinse the soap from my skin as the upbeat chords to the next song picked up. 

“ _ Hearts keep racing. _ ” The voice that filled the bathroom, lower than normal for the song and a little bit booming, most definitely did not come from the speaker suctioned to the shower wall. I gasped and spun toward the half-open shower curtain and Chris grabbed for my hips, grinning and already naked. “Don’t stop now,” he urged when I just blinked at him through the next line, the female complement to the one he’d opened with. “ _ We can’t come back from this, _ ” he crooned, urging me back with his hands still on my hips and stepping in to join me. His fingers dug into my flesh and his eyebrows lifted, his head tilting to one side as he sang. 

I rolled my eyes, lifting my hands to slap at his shoulders before resting them there. “Good, ‘cause I want more of what I had,” I whispered as Jessie Mueller sang over me, my eyes rolling while I did. He just grinned wider.

“ _ It feels so good to, _ ” he sang the next line directly into my ear, walking me farther into the shower until my back hit the wall. 

“Feels so good,” I echoed, a little louder than the last line but still only speaking rather than singing, and nowhere near the volume I’d been at before I knew he was there. (And just how long had he been there, anyway?)

“ _ To be bad, _ ” he slid his hands around and down to cup my butt, pulling me against him and narrowing his eyes. I rolled mine, but gave in, and when I repeated the line with him - terribly off-tune and as quietly as I thought I could get away with, but singing nonetheless - he grinned wickedly as we sang, then as soon as the line was over he kneaded my flesh in his hands and ducked his head to scrape his teeth across the curve where my neck met my shoulder. I sucked in a sharp breath and he lifted his head just until his lips brushed over my ear as he spoke. “How long ‘ya been in here? Still got a while, or did I miss all the fun?”

He couldn’t see me, his lips working their way back down my neck, but I couldn’t help but smirk, wrapping my arms around his neck and sliding one hand up into his hair, just starting to collect errant beads of water from the outer edge of the shower spray. “I just need to rinse the conditioner out of my hair,” my eyes fluttered closed and my head fell to the side, “but otherwise, all clean.” 

My head shot up when he pulled back. “I can change that for ‘ya,” he wiggled his eyebrows and pulled us both under the streaming water.

I laughed when he tugged on a small section of my hair. “The conditioner part,” I grinned and let my arms relax, falling a little until my hands rested on his shoulders, “or the clean part?”

His hand fell right back to my ass so that he held one cheek in each large hand and used them to both pull me against him and haul me up until I was barely perched on my toes and he was pressed - solid, thick,  _ hard  _ \- against my stomach. He kept his eyes on mine as he leaned in, his lips brushing mine when he spoke. “Both.” He smirked when a quiet moan worked up from the back of my throat, and I didn’t realize I’d drawn the corner of my bottom lip between my teeth until he tugged it free with his own. He drew it into his mouth and sucked, lightly, for a second before pulling back and releasing it with a quiet  _ pop _ . “Tilt your head back.”

I blinked a couple times, dazed. “Huh?”

Chris laughed and slid his hands off my butt and up my back until he could work his fingers into my hair, massaging my scalp gently. “Tilt your head back, silly girl.” I did as he asked and brought my hands down to hold onto his hips for balance. One of his strong, agile hands stayed in my hair while the other reached up to adjust the shower head so the water fell directly onto my head but not in my eyes. 

I love to have my hair played with, I always have. Whether it’s the gentle tingle created when fingers comb softly through the straight, thick strands or the firmer pressure of fingertips kneading into my scalp, the action never fails to make me a little soft, relaxed and even a little weak. And Chris knows that, and has taken advantage of it from the beginning. Before we’d slept together the first time, it was his way of initiating intimate but ‘safe’ physical contact between us. He’d work his hand in at the back of my head and massage while we watched tv or sat side-by-side reading on the couch, or he’d run his fingers through my hair more gently when he knew I was fighting sleep to get more time with him, easing me to sleep because he knew it was what I needed even if it wasn’t what I wanted. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he enjoyed it as much as I did, but I definitely think he got some happiness from doing it. 

Standing there in the shower with him, his hands working through my hair from the roots down to the tips, over and over again, teaming with the cascading water to remove all the conditioner, my eyes fell closed and my hands on his hips were the only things keeping me upright. He hummed along to the music and now and then he would lean down while he worked, dropping soft, sometimes feather-light kisses to my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, even my eyelids. And every time he did, my fingers would tense, digging into the skin and taut muscle at his hips.

_ We might burn but we might get saved.  _ The music and heavily accented voices reached me as if from a distance, through a tunnel almost.  _ I don’t feel much fire at all these days _ . The coincidence wasn’t lost on me. At that moment I felt like I was both burning - on fire even - and also that I’d been saved; that  _ he’d  _ saved me and also that everything since he’d come into my life had been heat, and fire, and passion.

His hands slid out of my hair and his long fingers curled around my neck from the sides to the back, his thumbs coming under my jaw to tilt my head up toward him. “All done,” he whispered against my lips, voice low and husky, just before he started to walk me back again toward the shower wall. Goosebumps popped up over my skin in spite of the steam filling the room and the warm water still pouring down around us. “ _ Feels so good to be bad _ ,” he sang quietly along with the last verse of the song, pressing his lips to mine and cutting off the final consonant sound. 

I slid my hands off his hips and up the hard ridges and planes of his stomach and chest, his skin sliding, hot and smooth and slick with water, under my palms. He’d been peppering my lips with soft, sweet, even chaste kisses as the next song opened, kisses as gentle and unhurried as the rhythmic piano notes flowing from the speaker. It was beautiful and lovely and easy. And it was driving me crazy. My fingers, probably even my nails, dug into his shoulders and I parted my lips to deepen the kiss. And at that moment, he pulled away. 

“ _ I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes.”  _ I could barely hear him as he sang along, he was so quiet, but I could feel his lips forming the words as he moved across my cheek and down the side of my neck.  _ “They’ve seen things you never quite say, but I hear.”  _ He looked up at me from under his eyelashes as his lips moved, still singing, across my collarbone and down my chest and his hands skimmed the outsides of my breasts, then my ribs, then stopped, resting on my hips. “ _ Come out of hiding I’m right here beside you,”  _ I tensed and my muscles twitched as he moved down my stomach, lowering himself onto his knees. I’m incredibly ticklish, but I would be lying if I said that was why my breath caught in my throat when he took a one-word break, his eyes falling closed, dark eyelashes, made even more beautiful, somehow, by the beads of water collected on them, fanning his cheekbones, and traced the tip of his tongue in a lazy circle around my belly button. He skimmed his hands, only the pads at the base of each finger touching me, down the outsides of my thighs. “ _ I’ll stay there as long as you’ll let me.”  _ He sang his way down, down, until his bottom lip was just brushing across the top of my slit with each word.

My hands had stayed on his shoulders until they were out of reach, and when he got to where I knew he’d been headed all along, I lifted them from where they hung at my sides and carded my fingers through his hair. His head fell back and he smiled up at me, so soft, so loving. “ _ Because you matter to me.”  _ While his right hand moved from my hip to the inside of my left thigh, not stopping until it was slipping behind my knee to hook it over his shoulder, his left was lifting to pull my right hand from his hair, locking our fingers together and pushing my hand up and out so my arm bent to the side at the elbow and my knuckles bit into the cool tile of the shower wall. His right hand curled over the outside and top of my leg just above my knee and slid up my thigh until it rested just at the juncture of my thigh and my hip. The whole time, he continued to smile up at me and his eyes never left mine.  _ “You matter to me _ ,” he sang along, whispered, almost, one more time before letting his eyes fall closed and turning toward the inside of my thigh.

When he kissed me, it was much like it had been when he was rinsing my hair: soft, gentle, sometimes barely there kisses that started just inside my knee. But with each kiss he moved a little higher, and by the time he reached that incredibly sensitive patch of skin that wasn’t quite my leg anymore but wasn’t quite  _ there _ yet, either, there was more pressure behind them, more heat. And,  _ oh god _ , there was that tongue, tracing a line straight up, just to the left of  _ just right _ . He opened his eyes, letting them flick up to me, and winked, then, before I had a chance to respond, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth over my entrance. It still almost felt like a tease, somehow, with his lips still closed and his kisses still gentle, though each one lingered longer than the last. Again, he worked his way up, and when he’d made it to the top of that overly sensitive, yet still under-stimulated seam that would grant him access, if only he would press a little bit harder, push a little bit deeper, his hand slid over until his palm pressed just under my belly button, holding me back against the wall, and his lips parted so that I felt his hot breath and the gentle pull of him sucking at the swollen, nearly throbbing bud of skin and nerves between my thighs. 

My head fell back against the wall and a whimper, high-pitched and breathy and almost as if I was trying to match the pitch of the voice pouring through the speakers -  _ All of this time I’ve been keeping my mind on the running away -  _ worked out of my throat as his thumb and forefinger reached down to pull gently at my skin and open me up to him. His tongue came out then and flattened against me, moving almost painfully slowly from the bottom of my slit, just skimming the edge of my entrance, to the top, barely brushing over my clit. And then he did it again. And again.  _ And for the first time, I think I’ll consider the stay. _

He was relentless, kissing and licking, flattening his tongue to slide it through the slick folds then tracing lines and patterns with just the tip, exploring with his mouth and his fingers. My legs shook, the one draped over his shoulder tensing and pulling him closer, harder,  _ more _ , and the one holding me up trembling until I was sure that if he let me go I’d collapse to the floor. My fingers tightened, clenching his in one hand and tugging at his hair with the other. My heart raced and my blood pounded in my ears, nearly drowning out the song even as it intensified, the male and female voices mingling, building toward its own climax. It didn’t keep me from hearing - or feeling - his quiet moans and hums as he worked me over, though. The muscles in my neck and shoulders tightened almost to the point of pain as they strained, my face still turned up toward the ceiling. Goosebumps popped up over my arms and chest as the water dried on my skin, chilling me everywhere except between my legs, where his warm mouth claimed me over and over. 

And then he stopped. And so did the water pouring from the shower head. 

I pulled my eyes open and lowered my head, my lips parted and my eyebrows drawn tightly together, to watch his hand fall from the shower’s water control back to my leg to pull it gently from his shoulder and set my foot back on the floor. I looked down at him with pure and utter confusion, disbelief, disappointment. 

“Don’t give me that pout, baby girl,” he told me as he stood, still holding my hand in one of his and swiping the thumb of the other just below his bottom lip before sucking it between his lips. “I’m not done with you yet.” He stepped forward and sunk his fingers into the flesh just below my hip, leaning in just next to my ear. “I plan on outlasting the hot water.” He pulled me with him as he walked backward. Once he’d stepped out of the shower and onto the plush mat covering the tile floor, he left me standing just inside and turned to pull a towel from the hook at his shoulder and drape it over the edge of the vanity. “This is no time for a cold countertop,” he told me with a wink when he turned back to me, just before he hooked his hands just below my ass and, giving me just enough time to get my arms looped around his shoulders, lifted me up until my legs wrapped around his waist.

I hadn’t kissed him in, well, far too long, so I pressed my lips to his as he turned to set me on the countertop. As he kissed me, gentle and slow and almost careful, there was a sharp contrast between the love I could feel in his kisses and the desire, the lust, I could feel radiating from both of us between my legs. He held my lower body tight to his and I could feel him pulsing where his cock had nestled between my legs when he lifted me. He leaned into the kiss once he had me seated and forced me backward until I had to pull one hand from his shoulder to brace it behind me. I turned my head and let it fall to the side and he took the hint, smirking, and worked his way across my cheek and jaw to my neck, nipping at my pulse just below my ear then soothing the skin with his tongue. “All this okay?” he asked me, still pressing kisses to my neck and just starting to move his hips so that he slid, just the smallest bit, through the wetness between my legs, a combination of my own arousal and his saliva from the attention he’d lavished on me in the shower.

“So, so okay,” I breathed as I leaned back even farther, not stopping until my head and then my shoulders hit the mirror behind me.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t, because by the time I’d finished the sentence he’d closed his lips around my left nipple and I was arching up into his mouth and left hand, which was skimming over my other breast, thumb drifting back and forth over that nipple as his lips tugged at the other one and his tongue flitted over it. His hips pulled back, just the slightest bit, just enough that he could slide his other hand off my hip and right into the place where his dick had just been. His lips stilled on my breast just for a second, curling into a smirk, when he slid his fingers between my folds. He probably expected the hot water to have rinsed away some of the moisture that was still very, very much present. When he found that not to be the case, he went back to work with his mouth, sucking on my nipple and swirling his tongue around it, pulling his hand from my body and wrapping it around himself to align our bodies. He stood up taller to press his forehead to mine, bringing our chests together and wrapping his hand around the back of my neck. I watched his eyelids fall closed as he slid into me, my body stretching to adjust. 

It had been just under two months, only a couple handfuls of times, really, and I still found myself amazed at everything I felt every time we were together that way. Arousal and desire and heat and passion and  _ oh my god, so good, you feel so good _ , but also love and care and tenderness and caution. The first time had been amazing, and more than satisfying (three times over), but it had been careful and slow and even tentative, at times. Each time since had become a little less careful - in all the best ways - a little more adventurous. That morning was a perfect example of that; I certainly hadn’t gone into the shower expecting it to end with his face between my legs or him pushing into me as I balanced on the edge of the bathroom vanity. But dear god, I wasn’t going to complain. I was never going to complain.

“Fuck,” he breathed, tightening his fingers around the back of my neck and bringing his now-free hand to my hip when he was buried as far as he could go. “Every damn time.”

“What’s that?” I breathed, my breath catching at the end as he pulled slowly out then rolled his hips to push back in.

“Feels so fuckin’ good, every damn time.”

My hand, the one that had fallen from his shoulders as he worked his mouth over my breast, found its way around his waist and to the small of his back as he rolled his hips, filling me then pulling back, smoothly and rhythmically and gradually picking up the pace as he went. I moaned and gasped, my fingernails digging into his skin at just at the top of his ass when he slid his hand from my hip across my lower abdomen until he brushed the pads of his first two fingers over my clit. He increased the pressure, circling and even pinching a little, and moved his hips faster, snapping them against me every few thrusts. I didn’t bother trying to control my volume, the moans, gasps, even whines, that escaped as he worked my body competing with the music we both seemed to have been ignoring since stepping out of the shower.

“Shit baby,” he groaned, his head falling to my shoulder, “you keep making those noises and you’re gonna turn me into a liar.”

I dug my heels into the backs of his thighs, just below the curve of his ass, and lifted my hips to push him even deeper. “How so?” I asked just before closing my teeth around his earlobe. I could feel the tension all through his body and I knew he was feeling just as much as I was. From the first time we’d done that dance, he’d known exactly how to touch me, where to kiss me, the right way to hold me, to have my skin tingling and my breath hitching and my toes curling. It certainly hadn’t been a deciding factor in our relationship, especially considering it hadn’t happened until eight months in, but  _ god  _ did it give me just one more way to feel connected and intimate with him, just one more reason to think that it felt so right to be with him. Perched there, on my bathroom counter, one arm trembling as it balanced the weight of my upper body as he moved within me and the other wrapped around him to feel the rhythm of his movements not only from the inside, but from the outside as well, my brain could only think in terms of words and short phrases -  _ please _ , and  _ there _ , and  _ god, yes, like that _ \- and yet I still knew that being with him felt like the most right thing in the world. 

“I promised you we’d outlast the hot water, but  _ fuck _ , I don’t think that’s happening.”

Instead of answering him, I sucked on his earlobe for a second then released it and moved to his jaw. I kissed my way across it and he moved to meet my lips with his own. I pushed my tongue into his mouth and slid my hand around his waist to cover his between us, pressing his fingers harder against me with my own. His breath stuttered and he kissed me harder and snapped his hips more sharply against mine. My climax built low in my stomach, each thrust pushing me closer and closer to the edge, and my hand moved up to grip his forearm as his fingers moved. I was so, so close, and when he increased the speed of his fingers against me, my thighs squeezed around his hips and a long moan worked its way from my chest, up through my throat, and finally, when I broke the kiss and let my head fall back, past my lips, starting low and ending as a gasp just as my orgasm broke inside me. I dug my fingers into his forearm until I was sure I would leave a mark, and the other hand scrambled for something, anything, to hold onto on the counter under my palm. 

He waited for me to finish, petting his fingers lightly over me and still moving his hips through the last of my aftershocks, then he moved his hand from between us, pressing it flat against the mirror behind me and using the other, still curled around the back of my neck, to pull me upright against him. He nearly assaulted my mouth, pressing into the kisses without concern for the way my teeth scraped against his lips and tongue. His hand on the mirror provided leverage for him to piston his hips harder, faster, and I locked my legs around his waist, crossing them at the ankles. I knew he was close, right on the edge, when his breath became completely erratic and his hand tightened around my neck almost until it hurt. 

I pulled away from his kisses and he pressed his face into the crook of my neck when I turned to speak into his ear. “Come on, Chris. You made me feel so good.  _ So  _ good, baby. I want you to feel just as good.” He moved a little faster, pushed into me a little harder. “Let go, Chris, let go just for me. You felt me, let me feel you.”

“Oh fuck,” he groaned, every inch of him pressing tighter into me, against me, around me, as he came. His forehead ground into my shoulder and his knuckles must have been white, he gripped the back of my neck so tightly. He stayed buried inside me for a moment as the feeling of his orgasm washed over him then subsided, then he slowly lifted his head, dropping random kisses to my shoulder, my neck, my cheek, and let go of my neck, letting his hand slide down my back to rest on my hip as he shifted his own hips backward a little to pull out of me. His other hand fell from the mirror to curl around my opposite hip, his thumb tracing lightly over the small flower tattooed along the inside curve of my hipbone, a reminder of a whole different kind of love, a then-new, platonic love that I’d found for the first time, then lost far too quickly, almost 20 years earlier and which had helped me begin to see that who I had been taught to be up until that point wasn’t who I had to be, a love without which I may never have become the woman in that room, with that amazing man. 

I lifted my hands to his shoulders and smoothed them over the taut, warm skin of his shoulders, his chest, his upper arms. They all felt so different than they had before, so much more relaxed, all the tightness that had been there in the shower, or after, when he carried me to the vanity, gone, worked out of his body. His touch on my hips, on my lower back, was soft, gentle, calming. I leaned in so I could press a quick, almost silly, kiss to the tip of his nose and he closed his eyes and grinned, a soft chuckle passing through his lips. 

“Love you, Dopey.”

I shook my head. “Happy,” I corrected him, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth as I grinned. 

He smiled a little wider. “Happy, then.” He lifted both hands to the sides of my face, combing back the wet strands of hair that clung to my forehead and cheeks. He worked his way down, and when he was pulling the hair carefully from where it stuck to my neck and shoulders, he stopped and his eyes went wide. “Fuck,” he muttered, the word quiet and under his breath, and his fingertips ghosted over the left side of my neck.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked around the room, finally reaching for the small mirror on the shelf on the opposite wall. He directed the mirror at my neck and angled it up toward my face so I could see into it. He continued to trace his fingers over my skin as he did, and I reached for the hand holding the mirror, tilting it a bit more until I could see the patterns he was drawing. As he moved his hand, I saw the four small, round red marks on my skin - four perfect fingerprints. If I had to guess, I would say there was a fifth, from his thumb, under my hairline.

“I am so fucking sorry, baby. Why didn’t you tell me I was hurting you?”

“Because you weren’t,” I assured him.

“Babe,” he shook his head, “I fucking left marks on you. That’s not okay.”

I pulled the mirror from his hand and set it behind me on the counter then rested my hands on his cheeks. “You didn’t leave marks, not really,” my thumbs drifted over his cheekbones and he tilted his head slightly, leaning into my right hand. “I’m clumsy enough to know what it looks like when something is going to leave a bruise, and it’s not that. It’s probably just,” I looked to the ceiling for a way to say what I meant to say, “I’m flushed anyway.” I finally said. “Between the heat from the shower and the heat from, well,” I pecked a quick kiss on his lips, “you, of course I’m more prone to turning a little red. It’ll go away.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You promise I didn’t hurt you?”

“I swear.” I turned his face toward me when he tried to drop his head. “I felt  _ a lot  _ of things, but none of them was pain.” He looked at me for a second like he was studying me, then finally leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, his hands curving around my shoulders and mine still resting on the sides of his face. He kissed me once, twice, three times, soft and gentle but a little lingering, then pulled back. “Okay?” I asked him, and he nodded, a little hesitant still, but resigned, apparently, to believing me. “Good. Now get out so I can pee.” I reached down to smack his butt and he scoffed, his eyes falling closed as he shook his head, his chin dropping to his chest. 

“Such a weirdo.”

“Yeah, but I’m your weirdo.”

“You are. You’re my weirdo and I love you.” He kissed the side of my head, his eyes lingering for a second, I was pretty sure, on the side of my neck, before he moved to the door and bent to pick up his clothes where he’d discarded them when he snuck in. Bent at the waist, his round, tight backside completely exposed and  _ right there _ , I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out with the leg closest to him and pushing at his butt with the ball of my foot. He was obviously not prepared for that, because he lost his balance and tipped forward, catching himself with a hand on the wall in front of him. He took a second to get himself together and finish collecting his clothes, and when he stood up he didn’t turn all the way around but craned his neck to look at me over his shoulder, eyes full of mischief. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“I know.” I jerked my eyebrows up toward my hairline and smirked. “Now,” I pointed to the door, “out.”

He left me alone there, shaking his head as he went, and by the time I was finished emptying my bladder, I could hear water running in the other bathroom and I guessed he had gone to clean himself up a little before putting his clothes back on. I stood from the toilet, flushing and closing the lid, and crossed back to the sink. As I washed my hands, I studied myself in the mirror. My hair was wet and slicked back, still hanging down my back where Chris had pushed it over my shoulders. My skin, for as far as I could see, had a slight glow, a shine, and was all still flushed, with an extra-pink tint on my cheeks and running down the center of my chest. My lips were a little bit swollen and looked as if they’d been stained a brighter pink than normal. Honestly, I felt more beautiful than I ever did with styled hair and carefully applied make up. Because, more than anything, I looked happy. Even when I forced the smile from my face, with a good bit of difficulty, I could still see a hint of it around my eyes. 

I threw the towel Chris had draped over the vanity into the hamper in the linen closet and grabbed a clean one to squeeze the water out of my hair, wrapping it and piling it high on my head. I reached for the eucalyptus and mint lotion that matched the body wash I’d used in the shower and smoothed it over my skin before pulling on the clothes I’d brought in with me, my favorite jeans and a cozy sweater. We didn’t really have plans for the day aside from avoiding Black Friday crowds - maybe a movie in the evening, if we decided to leave the house at all - and my main goal when choosing my clothes for the day had been comfort. Besides, every time I wore a sweater, Chris had a habit of pulling me onto his lap while we watched tv or read so that he could bury his face in my shoulder and, since we’d gotten more physically intimate, slide his hands and arms under it to wrap around my waist, almost using the sweater as a blanket. I liked to encourage that as much as possible. 

Pulling a comb from the cabinet under the sink, I pulled the towel from my hair and shook it out, then stood back in front of the mirror to comb it and pull it back into a loose French braid. I finished, wrapping an elastic band around the end of the braid, and turned my head to the side to study my neck. I ran my own fingertips over where his had pressed into my skin. The marks were still there, but they were decidedly lighter, and I figured they’d be gone completely within the next 20 minutes or so, especially once I left the hot, humid atmosphere of the bathroom. I knew he didn’t like that it had happened, that he’d left marks on my skin made by the force of his hand, but it really hadn’t hurt. And, probably because I knew that they were temporary, that no one besides him or me would ever see them, they really didn’t bother me at all. I didn’t mind wearing those marks from him for a short period of time, knowing that they were made not out of anger or violence, but out of passion and intensity and pleasure.

When I got to the living room he was sprawled on the chaise end of the couch,  _ Good Morning America _ playing in the background as he scrolled through his phone. “Hey pretty girl,” he greeted me when he looked up, “I like that sweater.” I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see my grin, and by the time I stood just in front of the couch he’d shifted a little more into the corner to give me room to stretch out beside him. I dropped down beside him, my legs running alongside his, and settled into his side when he lifted his arm for me to nestle under it. I turned a little onto my right side, draping my top leg over both of his and dropping my arm over his waist. He kissed my forehead and leaned his head down, and when I felt his fingers on my neck I knew he was looking at the marks he’d left here.

“They’re almost gone,” I told him, my eyes falling closed. Between the early gym session, the hot shower, and the bonus workout after, I was starting to be taken over by fatigue. I felt him nod, his fingers still dancing, feather-light, over my skin where the marks were fading more every second. We just sat that way for a few minutes, Michael Strahan’s voice boisterous but quiet in the background, and I would probably have drifted off if given another minute or two. Instead, Chris spoke again.

“Have you become addicted, baby?” He asked, nearly quoting the spoken lines of dialogue that interrupted the song that had played as he licked and kissed me closer and closer to oblivion in the shower. I looked up at him, the expression on my face probably a little confused. “Have you become addicted to this, to us? Do you know, when you say things, how much they matter to me? How much  _ you  _ matter?”

“Chris,” I pushed myself up until I was sitting up straight and almost looking down at him where he was partially reclined back into the cushions. “I cannot get enough of anything about you, about us. The way you touch me, kiss me, hold me, and  _ yes _ , the way you listen to me. That, more than anything, probably, because you’ve always made me feel like the things I say matter, even before we were what we are now. And now, now I’m completely, absolutely, one-hundred-fucking-percent in love with you.” He chuckled a little at the expletive laden declaration I’d stolen from him after he’d used it a few months earlier (and again a few times since) and reached for my hands where they rested on the front of his shirt to tangle our fingers together. “So yeah, if you’d consider that ‘addicted,’ and I do, I’m absolutely, completely addicted.”

“Thank. God,” he said, a little forceful, pulling me back down so my body nearly covered his and working his hands, like I knew he would, under my sweater to hold me close. “I’d hate to think I was the only one.”

I squeezed my eyes tight and turned my face to press it into his shoulder before kissing the side of his neck and shifting until I laid more comfortably along the length of his body. I would only last about five minutes before I fell asleep, thanks to the comfort and feeling of safety and his fingers drawing circles over my back, but when I woke up about 30 minutes later with him still holding me close with one hand and responding to emails on his phone with the other, he kissed my forehead as I stretched and went right back to his work, and I knew that, addiction or not, what I had with him was the best thing that had happened to me in many, many years. In fact, it probably tied for the title of the best thing that had happened to me  _ ever _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not even going to lie, I was super nervous about writing, and subsequently posting, this one. So while I always, always love and appreciate getting any comments because I crave feedback - both positive and constructive - I would appreciate it even more on this one so that I have something to go off of other than my own freaked out brain when trying to decide what worked and what didn't.
> 
> And as always, thanks for reading!


	3. Consider the Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the recap for anyone who chose to skip the smut in Chapter 2:
> 
> Ten months after chapter one, the morning after spending Thanksgiving with her close friends Chelsea and AJ, our dear narrator comes home from an early gym session to find that Chris has gone out with Millie for a morning walk. She takes advantage of the empty house to shower the gym sweat away, listening - and singing along - to the "Waitress" musical soundtrack as she does. However, she doesn't realize that Chris comes in mid-song, and he surprises her by making her shower concert a duet (a very, very intimate duet), with a major climactic moment coming (no pun intended, but ... yeah) with the song "You Matter to Me." (https://youtu.be/AREDtpRZTSA) And that's all I'm going to say, because if I did my job well, the purpose that Chapter 2 served as far as setting up Chapter 3 will be clear after reading.
> 
> And now you're all caught up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To follow the trend set in Chapter 2, this chapter has a very important connection to a song from "Waitress." If you would like to listen before/during/after, you can find it at https://youtu.be/cH7qQHGVAGs. (Even if you haven't listened to the soundtrack, you may be familiar with this song because it got played quite a bit on the radio as well.)

_ 3 weeks later (December, Year 2) _

We walked the 10 blocks through the Theatre District from our hotel to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in a pack of eight: Chris, me, and his brother, sisters, and all three of their respective significant others. Chris had pouted when I insisted that he should change our hotel reservation from the $800 a night hotel he’d booked originally as part of my gift to the nearby Omni Berkshire, easily just as nice as the nicest hotel I’d ever stayed in, because I’d be just as happy there - more so, probably, because I would never feel comfortable at the more expensive one, always on edge and worrying about how I might slip up and make a stupid mistake, embarrassing myself, or worse, Chris and his family. I knew his attachment to the first hotel wasn’t because he wanted or needed the luxury or the status of the ‘nicer’ accommodations, but because he wanted to treat me to something special. It took some work to pound into his thick skull that the  _ special  _ part was the two and a half day retreat to New York with him and his siblings during my holiday visit to Boston, it was the show - my first ever actually on Broadway - and it was the simple fact that it was all with  _ him _ . Still, he’d paid me back for my stubbornness by telling me as we packed our bags into the car that he’d ended up booking us two nights in the Trump hotel. His joke hadn’t lasted long though, when I told him with an absolutely straight face that if that were the case, he wasn’t the man I thought he was and I needed to go back inside and book a flight back home immediately because I was done with him. Turns out I have a better poker face than the award-winning actor in the relationship, because he only stared at me for about half a second, then crumbled, insisting he was only joking.

It was cold as we walked to the theatre, but not unbearably so, a nice surprise considering it was December in New York. So, the eight of us had managed to dress for the occasion without compromising comfort. The men in the group would probably have been able to pull that off regardless of the weather, particularly Chris and Scott, who practically ooze charisma regardless of what they wear, but the part of me that wanted to feel pretty while out on the town with my sinfully handsome boyfriend was thankful that I could get by in the new sweater dress I’d bought especially for the holiday visit, a belted cashmere jacket (an early Christmas gift that Chris had insisted on giving me with the tickets), tights, and my favorite boots. The less than a mile walk was also greatly appreciated, considering said boots were my favorites not only because the leather was soft and supple and they were fleece-lined and warm, stopping just below the knee, but because the chunky heels brought me about three inches closer to being able to look Chris in the eyes when we stood face-to-face.

“I still feel bad,” I sighed when we came to an intersection, the group discreetly closing ranks around Chris as we waited for the crosswalk light to turn green.

Chris tilted his head to look down at me from where he stood just over my shoulder, his hand on my lower back obscured from passersby by his brother-in-law and Shanna’s boyfriend standing shoulder-to-shoulder behind us. His brow furrowed as he asked, “About what?”

“Just,” I rolled my eyes, “complicating things. The sneaking around,” I waved one hand at the circle of family and friends around us. In addition to the two men standing behind us just so no one would see Chris’s touch, light but affectionate, on my back or shoulder, Shanna walked on my right and Scott stayed nearly glued to my left hip, his arm looped through mine. Carly and Zach, Scott’s boyfriend of over three years, completed the circle, Carly positioned between Shanna and her boyfriend, next to Chris, and Zach on his opposite side between Scott and Carly’s husband. “Having to sit farther away, not going backstage after. Although, I still maintain that you guys can do that if you want. I’m more than happy to wait. Or keep my distance.” I made eye contact with each of them in turn, my eyes lingering on Chris’s as his thumb traced circles over my back and he smiled softly down at me, his lips barely turned up at the corners but his eyes narrowed and crinkling.

“ _ Or _ ,” Scott tugged on my arm when the light changed, surprising me and jerking me forward onto my toes, “you can just be my date, I’ll be your GBF.” He lifted his free hand over his shoulder, thumb out and vacillating between Chris and Zach. “These two can have each other.”

I rolled my eyes and nearly whined. “Oh god, Spencer would never forgive me.” Spencer was not only my gay best friend, he was one of my two  _ very  _ best friends, second only to Ashley, with whom I’d been best friends since the age of six. He and I had met over 11 years earlier through our shared mentor when I was a first-year teacher and he was a student-teacher. Whether it was because we were the two youngest members of the faculty (and two of only four under the age of about 50), because we were two little blue dots in a sea of red (him being a not-yet-openly gay middle school teacher in our extremely conservative town in northwest Louisiana and me being, well, a  _ dirty lib’ral _ ), or simply because we were, as he always liked to say,  _ soulmates, you and I _ , we’d hit it off immediately and he’d been my best friend since about the second week of school.

“Or you and I can pair off!” Shanna bounced a little on her toes as we walked. “I think we’d be very believable BFFs.” I looked over at her and she was grinning so widely at me I couldn’t help but giggle and drop my head a bit.

“Or,” Chris shifted, taking half a step to the right so he was standing squarely behind me. Zach did the same, keeping the circle closed with Chris dead in the center of it. Chris’s hand had been so light on my back as we walked that I barely even registered when he removed it (for all I knew it could have been just my jacket shifting as we moved), but I was acutely aware of when both his hands curled around my hips. “You can all back off.” 

Carly’s voice was whiny and mocking when she spoke. “Aww, is Chrissie jealous that no one is fighting to be his date?”

“No,” he practically growled, “ _ Chris  _ just wants everyone to back off his girl.” His fingers dug into the flesh just above my hip bones, even through the layers of clothing keeping me warm in the winter evening.

I let my fingers ghost over the backs of his hands before lacing my own hands together and letting them drop in front of me, my forearms hanging in front of his hands. “Look,” I shrugged, “I’m fine with whatever. I just don’t want to be a nuisance.” 

“Baby,” he leaned forward a bit as we walked to speak quietly just above my ear, and when we stopped again for another red light, he crashed into my back. Instead of taking half a step back to restore the space between us, he held me against him with his hands still on my hips, “you’re the exact opposite of a nuisance.” He pulled back finally, and dragged his hands off me. I tilted my head down, pretending to adjust the belt on my jacket, as he did and followed his left hand with my eyes as he shoved it into his own jacket pocket. When he spoke again, he was much louder, “And if any of these jokers has a problem, they can fuck off.”

I gasped and couldn’t help myself, spinning on my heel to look up with wide eyes, mouth agape. “Chris!” I was a split second away from slapping his chest when Carly stepped forward, between her sister and me, to spin me, letting her arm drape across my shoulders once I was facing forward again and resting her temple against mine. I could hear Chris still laughing, not loud and boisterous, but snarky and under his breath, and when I cut my eyes over to him he only smirked back at me.

Carly’s voice right next to my ear brought my attention back to her. “Hey, it’s really more than okay. I mean, not the fact that my little brother is an  _ ass, _ ” she called over my head at the target of her insult, _ “ _ but the need to be more discreet. Honestly, I kind of like it better this way. Those two goofballs,” she turned and leaned forward to look around me at her brothers, my gaze following hers, and rolled her eyes at Scott squirming under Chris’s heavy arm across his shoulders, holding him captive as both Chris and Zach poked and prodded at him from both sides, “those  _ three  _ goofballs - attract attention everywhere they go, and half the time it has nothing to do with celebrity, it’s just who they are. It’s kind of nice for them to have to tone it down. Our seats will still be great, and I’ve been backstage with Chris before; yeah, it’s nice to congratulate the actors in person, and I’m sure they enjoy meeting  _ Captain America _ , but you know they’ve also got to be exhausted and sometimes I wonder just how worth it it is for them to meet a movie star at the expense of going out to unwind with their friends or home to their families and beds. Besides, most of them are superstars in their own rights. They are a tiny bit less impressed by him than most people are.” 

I reached up to squeeze her hand where it curled around my shoulder and smiled over at her. “Thank you.”

She only shrugged. “Just being honest.”

…

I’d seen other shows in and near cities where I’d lived, and I’d known the basic story of  _ Waitress  _ since long before I knew Chris was taking me to see the production, but I had been in no way prepared for actually seeing the show on Broadway. On a technical level, it was probably no different - touring companies are incredibly professional and I’d had no complaints about any of the shows I’d seen before outside New York - but my  _ brain  _ knew that I was sitting in a theatre on Broadway, with Chris, no less, and I was absolutely mesmerized because of it. 

On top of my general wonder, though, it turned out that knowing the music and basic storyline of the show wasn’t the preparation I thought it would be for seeing the actual show itself. I expected, based on the music, something mostly light-hearted, funny, even a little goofy. And it was all those things, at times. But Jenna’s personal growth and discovery sat as centerpiece of it all, and it was far deeper and more heartfelt than I was prepared for. Early in the first act, I was surprised by Jenna’s flashback scene, her mother being thrown around the kitchen by her father, and began to have small, vague flashbacks of my own. They weren’t even whole memories, really, just a tug in my heart and a twist in my stomach as my body remembered what it felt like to hide behind my closed bedroom door when possible, or make myself seem as small as I could when it wasn’t, as my mom and step-dad, the only father I’d ever known, screamed at each other, slammed doors, even threw things. I’d never actually seen either of them hit the other, as the character on the stage apparently had, but I wasn’t convinced it had never happened. And for a young girl who wanted - needed, really - nothing more than to make everyone around her happy, the raised, heated voices did enough damage all on their own. 

I felt myself recoiling into my seat, trying to shrink myself like I’d done as a child and a teenager, and apparently so did Chris. He reached across the armrest to pull my hand from my lap and onto his, laying it palm-up on his thigh. He traced patterns there and tapped out the rhythm of the song that underscored the scene, and the second the emotional moment on the stage had passed on to a more humorous one in the doctor’s office waiting room, he leaned over to say, “I bet your baking is better.” He didn’t actually acknowledge what had upset me, or even that I was upset, really, but it was a perfect response, probably for that very reason. I knew that  _ he  _ knew what was going through my head, and I appreciated that, rather than bring it up, he’d found a way to change the subject that also managed to remind me that he was on my side. 

It had taken a long time, longer than he’d liked, really, for me to open up to Chris in any significant way about my family. I’d told him a few months into our actual relationship that they were pretty terrible, but I had a hard time saying more than that, or explaining exactly what it was that made them so terrible. There was a big, big part of me that was embarrassed - of how loud and ignorant many of them were (the kind of ignorance that was borne out of a disinterest to actually learn), of their closed-mindedness, and especially of their opportunistic ways, their tendencies to make everything about them and never miss an opportunity to look for, even blatantly  _ ask  _ for, a free ride or a handout (something I was terrified would be an issue if and when I did finally decide to let them meet Chris). There was another part of me that was afraid that telling anyone in my adult life about the racism, the homophobia, the sexism - the overall bigotry, really - that I was surrounded by as I was growing up, as I was developing into a young adult, would result in them thinking that, deep down, I must also carry at least some of those traits. And then, finally, there was a part of me that just didn’t want to talk about the verbal, mental, and emotional abuse almost all of us endured at the hand of my step-father, abuse that got worse as his alcoholism worsened and evolved into harder drug abuse and addiction, a part that didn’t want to express the extent of my mother’s issues with codependence, because it felt like talking about those things would only set me backward in whatever progress I’d made toward overcoming some of the anxiety I had developed as a result, and erase the (often still tenuous) self-esteem and self-worth I had managed to build up in the intervening years. Eventually, though, the feelings of comfort and security I felt with Chris in essentially every other aspect of our relationship, and my life, really, had begun to work their way into that arena as well, and that, combined with the realization that I risked pushing him away if I kept trying to shut him out of that part of my past, my identity, had led to me opening up a lot more over the couple months or so leading up to that night in the theatre with him. At that moment, I was incredibly thankful for that, because just knowing that he understood what was on my mind as we watched that particular scene, at least on an intellectual level, if not an emotional one, made all the difference in the world for me and allowed me to to actually enjoy the show rather than shutting down at the painful memories.

Already slightly less tense than I had been before he spoke, I scoffed and rolled my eyes at his compliment, shaking my head at him, and I could see his grin out of the corner of my eye. By the time Jenna and Dr. Pomatter were stumbling through their first awkward meeting in his office, the muscles I had clenched tightly all throughout my body had relaxed and the vague feeling of nausea had disappeared. I managed to make it through the rest of the first act, even the less upbeat parts, without incident, and by the time Ogie made his first ridiculous appearance on stage, I was laughing through the song with everyone else.

I felt Chris’s eyes on me multiple times during the second act, but refused to take my own from the stage, partially because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but mostly because I didn’t want to miss a second of the show. I didn’t have a choice though, when Dr. Pomatter entered Jenna’s kitchen with the intent of convincing her not to run from him.  _ “I’m not gonna have this conversation about how crazy this is _ ,” he told her, and Chris’s hand pulled from where he’d twisted his fingers with mine on the armrest at the end of intermission to drop to the middle of my thigh and squeeze. I wasn’t clueless; I knew that he was thinking about a time when we’d had a similar conversation about my own insecurities regarding our relationship and he’d reassured me in a similar manner. I also knew what was coming. I’d had the soundtrack to the show memorized beginning to end for, well, for longer than I’d even known Chris. I knew which song would be next. I also knew my body’s signs all too well - my chest grew tight, my throat ached, and I felt tears stinging at the backs of my eyes and nose. I wasn’t sad. In fact, over the past 11 months, the song had come to hold such positive meaning for me that it was just overwhelming to actually sit there, Chris’s thumb rubbing back and forth, back and forth, over the top of my thigh, and experience it being performed live. Besides that, I could relate all too well to Jenna’s feelings of inadequacy and fear and just not knowing where she stood, who or what she was supposed to be - which, I suppose, did make me a little sad, in a vague, distant sort of way. But I also connected deeply to her surprising realization that someone wanted her, cared about her, was willing to fight for her, thought she  _ mattered,  _ and the fact that, in that moment, she truly had no idea what to do with that information.

The opening chords played and Dr. Pomatter sang  _ I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes,  _ and Chris leaned over, so close his nose brushed my hair when he whispered, “This one’s my favorite.” My eyes had fallen closed, a combination of the beautiful song and his proximity, his voice in my ear, and I let myself fall over onto him when his arm slid around my shoulders. 

“You big sap,” I murmured, my head resting on his shoulder, hoping to take the focus off me and put it on him. For the first time, it occurred to me that he hadn’t picked just any show to take me to. He hadn’t even just picked any  _ good  _ show, or one that he thought I would like. He’d picked the show because of  _ that  _ song, because that song, or what it stood for, at least, had been defining our relationship pretty much from day one. It was overwhelming to me, what that meant, what it said about him and me and  _ us _ , the understanding that it meant just as much to him as it did to me.

If he felt the tears that rolled, slowly and without fanfare, down my cheek and onto his neck and collarbone just above the neck of his sweater, he didn’t let on. He just brought the hand not holding me to him over from the opposite side of his lap to lay on top of mine on the armrest, sliding his fingers between mine and locking them together. “Love you.”

“Love you back.”

I wish I could say I got my shit together after that, but I would be lying. At one point, during the much more light-hearted and humorous  _ I Love You Like a Table _ , I tried to convince Chris (and myself) that I had managed to compose myself and started to pull away from him to sit back up straight in my seat. I think he knew I wasn’t as put together as I was trying to pretend that I was, because he let me go, but when he slid his arm back across my shoulders toward him, he cupped his hand around the back of my bicep so that he could slip it down my arm and under my hand, sandwiching my hand between his two much larger ones and bringing it off the armrest to sit atop his thigh.

I almost managed to fool even myself into thinking that I was doing okay, that I had pushed down my overly raw emotions and was enjoying the show for just that, a show. Every time a thought of my own life, my own story, tried to work its way into my mind, trying to pull me back down into that feeling of being ‘less than,’ I was able to push it down, and I even laughed a few times at the jokes on the stage. Chris never did let go of my hand, though, turning it over so the back of my hand rested in one palm while the fingers of his other hand drifted over my own fingers, his thumb pressing and massaging into my palm any time I started to tense up. 

And then, I lost it again. If I had been expecting  _ You Matter to Me  _ when it came around, I’d been waiting on eggshells for  _ She Used to be Mine _ . For all the ways the show and the unexpectedly pregnant protagonist were absolutely nothing like my own life (ways that Chris couldn’t have begun to understand, yet, but that was a whole other issue for a different day, a day that I knew was going to come sooner rather than later, which brought about a whole other set of fears and anxieties), that song felt as if someone had been living inside me for the past two years, since my husband’s death, recording every terrified, self-critical thought I’d ever had. By the time the first chord played, I was holding my breath. Chris turned my hand back over in his, lacing our fingers together and ran his other hand slowly up and down my arm. There was no sense trying to fool myself into thinking that he wouldn’t be able to pick up on what was happening with me.

“Hey, you okay?” My head whipped to my right to see Shanna looking over at me with wide, concerned eyes. I used the hand not being held by Chris to wipe the tears from my eyes and cheeks, more coming instantly to replace them. Honestly, I think I’d gotten so accustomed to crying through that song by that point that I didn’t even realize that I was nearly sobbing.

“Yeah,” the word was almost stuttered, my breath catching in my throat, and I nodded to help make my point. “I’m fine,” I forced the words out through the tightness in my throat and chest. “Just, um, a former student used to sing this song. For competitions. It makes me miss her. Sorry, I can be a bit emotional.” I tried to smile and rolled my eyes for her benefit, hoping she would believe my partial-truth.

She smiled softly and rubbed my shoulder. “Well, you’re with the right family, then.” 

As soon as I turned my head back to face the stage, fresh tears rolling down my cheeks and my shoulders trembling slightly in an effort to hold back full-on sobs, Chris’s voice was in my ear. “All good?” 

“Mmhmm.” I knew my cover wouldn’t work as well on him as it had on Shanna, who was lovely and well-meaning but who just didn’t know me the way he did. 

“Sure?” His arm went back around my shoulders, and the way he pulled me to him, almost possessively, told me he wouldn’t be letting go again.

“Just a lot of feelings.”

“Okay,” his thumb drifted over my knuckles and he leaned in until his nose brushed the shell of my ear, his warm breath washing over my ear and neck when he spoke, “I’m right here.”

…

I was quiet on the walk back to the hotel after the show, but between Shanna and Carly talking about the show and Scott, well, being Scott, I don’t think anyone noticed. And if they had, or if they’d brought it up after the fact, I would’ve blamed it on fatigue. Chris was quiet too, and less discreet than he’d been on the way to the theatre. The rest of the family still circled us, but he stood right next to me, and his arm was slung around me, hand curled around my hip and holding me with enough pressure that I could feel the press of his fingertips through my jacket. It was a short walk, and it was dark, and besides that, my mind was far too occupied with other things, including how grateful I was to have him at my side, to worry about whether we might be seen. 

We parted with the others in the lobby, heading for the elevators while they all took a detour to the hotel’s bar. We’d been invited, of course, but Chris had made excuses on behalf of both of us, telling them we were both tired and just wanted to head to bed. He was quiet again in the elevator, but as soon as he’d pressed the button for our floor, he stepped behind me and gripped the sides of my shoulders, pulling me back against him. Keeping steady pressure, he ran his hands up and down my arms from my shoulders to my elbows, and he tilted his head down to press his lips to the top of my head. When the elevator doors opened, all he did was kiss my head quickly before pulling back, sliding his hands up onto my shoulders and kneading his thumbs into the base of my neck as we walked to the room.

“Hey,” he said softly as soon as the door clicked closed behind him. I turned where I stood, only a couple steps ahead of him. “What d’ya think?”

I did my best to smile at him. I didn’t want to seem unappreciative, because I really, really wasn’t. I couldn’t have been more grateful for what he’d done. And I really had enjoyed the show. But there was just a sense of melancholy that had come over me since the second act. “The show was incredible,” I told him honestly.

“Yeah,” he closed the distance between us and took my hand, guiding me to sit with him on the couch by the windows that looked out onto the city skyline, “you said that already. But now it’s just you and me and I want to know what you’re  _ really  _ thinking.”

I sighed. I could continue pretending the show hadn’t affected me the way it had, that I hadn’t been thinking about the things I’d lived through as a child and how they’d affected the woman I’d become, how my life over the past two years had become something I never could have anticipated, how I still sometimes felt off-balance, adrift, due to all the ways I felt like I didn’t have control over anything, including myself, but it would be pointless. He knew me too well, and I wouldn’t want to lie to him anyway. “I thought I knew what to expect, but I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was.”

He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me across the cushion so that we were hip-to-hip. “You okay?” He reached across with the other hand and brushed my bangs across my forehead to one side. 

I sagged against him and he reclined back a little so that we lounged against the back of the couch, an odd sight in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall, the relaxed position juxtaposed with our nice clothes and outerwear and the expressions on our faces - mine somewhat pained and sad, his pensive and concerned. I nodded, “Yeah, just a little raw.” I settled my head on his shoulder and nuzzled it there until it was tucked under his jaw. “And for the record, I didn’t lie to your sister. That song does always make me think of Kassidy, and I cry nearly every time.”

“I know it does,” he squeezed my hip, “you’ve shown me the video a time or 10.” Guilty. I was so in awe of that girl, so proud. And it’s not like he didn’t enjoy it. “And I know you do. But not like that.” He watched me through the mirror as I turned my face up toward him. “Don’t look so surprised. We’re a year in, baby girl, I know your cries.”

“Okay,” I huffed, “when you say it like that it’s a little embarrassing.” I knew he dealt with more than he should have to from me: my anxiety and insecurity and hyper-emotionality. Sometimes I wondered if and when he would get tired of it. I pushed myself up, away from the back of the couch and off him and started to untie the belt holding my jacket in place. 

“It shouldn’t be,” he sat up, leaning behind me, and hooked his hands around the lapels of the jacket at my shoulders and slid them down a little to help me shrug it off. “How many times have you seen me cry?” 

I slumped back against the couch again. “A few. Not as many as you have me.”

He scoffed and leaned forward to drape the jacket gently across the coffee table in front of us, pulling his own off and laying it on top of mine. “Give it time. C’mere,” He sat back again then turned toward me to hook his hands behind my knees, pulling my legs across his lap. “I know it’s not easy for you to look back on the life you used to have and where you thought you’d be right now and see how different it is from where you actually are.” His hands stayed on the backs of my legs, sliding up just a little so they were behind my thighs, thumbs rubbing gentle circles over my tights. He was talking about my becoming a widow, not bringing the childhood stuff into it, and  _ God  _ I loved him a little more for it, as strange as that may sound. 

“Chris -” my breath caught in my throat. I had too many feelings. Everything had changed since I lost my husband, and for a long, long time, it felt like I had lost myself, the happily married self that little-girl-me had only dreamed would one day be a reality, replacing the unhappy family I’d grown up in. And there were still times when I struggled with that loss, wrestled with the thoughts that Jenna had been singing about when she sang about the woman she used to be and could no longer seem to find. But along the way, I’d managed, with Chris’s help, to find yet another version of me inside, and another life. It was almost as if him coming into my life had been not just a new chapter, but a new book altogether. And it would never be the same as it was before him, and I knew the pain of what I’d lost wasn’t going to go away, but it was good.  _ He  _ was good, and what we had together was good. It was so, so good. And I didn’t want him to think anything different, and that made it hard, sometimes, to talk to him about my too numerous, too strong feelings, because I wanted to let him in, more than anything, wanted to talk to him about  _ everything  _ and let him comfort and soothe and protect me the way I knew he wanted to, but I couldn’t bear the thought of making it seem like what we had together was anything less than incredible, or that I regretted a second of it or wished it away. 

It seemed, often, as if he were able to read my thoughts better than I would have been able to express them in words anyway. “No baby, it’s okay.” He held my legs in place and scooted, a little awkwardly, closer to me, not stopping until my butt rested against the outside of his thigh. His hands slid up my thighs and around to the tops of them so that if I hadn’t been wearing tights his thumbs would have brushed the front of my underwear. There was nothing sexual in the way he touched me, though, it was just gentle, and calming, and intimate, a reminder that he was there, that it was him and me, partners. “I love you more than I can properly articulate, and I’m beyond grateful for where we are and what we have, but neither of us should try to ignore the life you had before I got to call you mine, any part of it. It wouldn’t be right, and you deserve more than that, and so does he.”

I cupped his jaw in both hands and leaned in to kiss him, my whole body relaxing when he kissed back, long and slow and sweet. “Thank you,” I told him when I finally pulled back, foreheads and noses still touching and my hands sliding down the sides of his neck to rest on his shoulders.

“And speaking of getting to call you mine,” he kissed the tip of my nose before pulling back, “regardless of who she  _ used  _ to be, my girl is closer to perfect than she’ll ever give herself credit for.” He kept one hand, the one that reached across him from the other side, where it was and pulled the hand between us from under my dress to tuck my hair behind my ear, cradling my jaw in his hand after he did. “She’s good, honest, and far too hard on herself.” He laid his arm across the back of the couch, continuing to comb his fingers through my hair. “She’s not broken, maybe a little cracked at times,” he lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, “but I’m  _ always  _ here to help. She is definitely kind, though not nearly as messy as she thinks she is. And it’s my goal every day to make sure she knows she’s not alone.” He curled his hand around the back of my neck, over my hair, and pulled me back to him. I resisted the urge to close my eyes when our foreheads came back together, his eyes almost boring into mine. “ _ Because she matters to me. _ ”

I coughed out a breath that was half cry, half laugh then pulled back until I could look at him without feeling like I was going cross-eyed. “Did you memorize the whole song?”

“I like musicals,” he grinned a little and winked.

I fisted the soft wool of his sweater in my hands. “I like  _ you _ .”

“I  _ love  _ you.” He jerked his eyebrows up, teasing, as if he were trying to make it a competition.

“I love you too.” My hands drifted from his shoulders over his chest and down his ribs until I could wrap my arms around his waist. He helped pull me in, curling the arm that was resting on the back of the couch around my shoulders and sliding his other hand farther up my dress to slip around my waist and press into the small of my back. (And who knew it was possible for him to have his hand up my dress for that long without it turning into something more? But also, thank goodness I was wearing a dress, because his uninterrupted access to my body was exactly what I needed right then, the heat and tenderness of his touch doing so very much to keep me grounded there in that room with him) I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and nearly whispered against his skin, “And god, I’m so, so happy to be yours. As long as you’ll have me.”

**Author's Note:**

> My goal is to post the three chapters one week apart, as I did with the Twitter/airplane story.


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